Over the last few years, chaotic art music has become a core-level emotional experience in the experimental metal and noise scenes. With bands like Mamaleek, Frontierer, and Street Sects making deep ruts in my frequently recommended albums for anyone seeking an intense musical experience, I was surprised to find that I’d never heard Hiraki’s 2017 debut album Modern Genes. How could a band with such a perfect balance of messy and cohesively chaotic energy make a follow up that could not only rival their debut, but turn it in a way that felt fresh and linear at the same time?
How could someone win me over after hearing Mamaleek’s Come and See? For Hiraki, the answer to this was to go even harder. More discomfort; more crushing, intense rhythms; more beauty in moments of chaos (and sometimes malice). From the analog synth gates to the blown-speaker transcendence of modern noise rock, Hiraki finds a way to make the discomfort stick to your ribs. The vocals are gross, but also deeply emotional. The drums are huge, never to be overtaken by other sometimes more intense rhythmic elements.
“Proto Skin,” which comes six and a half minutes into the record, is the first moment of reprieve from the madness of the first two tracks. But even “Proto Skin,” with it’s almost post-hardcore second half and it’s suddenly more traditional emotional hardcore scream, can’t be trusted. From the start of the track, a very mechanical guitar riff, which is almost old school industrial in its rhymicallity, devolves into a mess of cymbals and catharsis, which then returns to the mechanical, plodding-along tension of the start. “I’ll be here all year,” vocalist Jon Gotlev repeats many times, “just yelling.”
Out of context, “Proto Skin” would slip rather comfortably into a screamo playlist. It would have to be near the noisy peak of pure emotion, but I believe it would work. In context though, next to the aggressive churning and frantic “Wonderhunt,” or the nearly death industrial vibe of “New Standards,” it is the balancing point that forms a cohesive map to the latter half of the record. It shows that Hiraki are not only not fucking around, but that genres are for suckers. Heaviness by any means necessary and transcendence through raw human emotion.
“Mirror Stalker,” like “Proto Skin,” is built around a pulsing, mechanical rhythm. The track is littered with almost-notes from the guitars. It’s almost a strum, but cut off. Even the notes that are played are out of tune. It’s so frustratingly uncomfortable. But goddamn does it work well as an atmosphere that surrounds someone yelling “Mirror stalker, mirror stalker!”
The final track, “The Alarmist,” combines all of the energy and catharsis of previous tracks to bring the entire frenetic mess to a stumbling, noisy end. The track devolves from a classic hardcore build up, to a breakdown driven by quick hits on a highhat, with the guitar and the noisy atmosphere filling out both the high and low end, until the noise layer takes over and churns slowly from a melodic, almost uplifting, run to a nightmare of overblown, clipping bass distortion. The drums disappear, then the guitar, then everything, into the reverb tail at the end of the track.
The evolution of Hiraki from one album to the next seems to be more bleakness, more disgusting, raw humanity, and I’m here for it. The noisy, electronic elements are more developed and the overall sound design has crossed from progressive art metal over to raw electronic power. In a decade filled with fantastically avant garde and progressive art musicians like Street Sects, Lingua Ignota, and Daughters, it’s always amazing to me when a band manages to just blow my mind in the category. Stumbling Through The Walls is a massively intense and complicated album, and if the progression from debut to sophomore album is any indication, the next work from this project will be crushing.
Hiraki’s Stumbling Through The Walls is out now on Nefarious Industries, or directly on Bandcamp.